The WSJ did an
excellent article
(A1, subscription required) of something I've been hoping to see for a while,
news on someone who dared cast half a grain of doubt on whether the Quran has
been perfectly preserved throughout the 1400 or so years it's been around.

This story's opening paragraphs are worthy of a prize-winning novel (which is
part of the reason I subscribe--excellent literary quality):

On the
night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit
college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building
crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anton
Spitaler, an Arabic scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of
ancient manuscripts of the Quran.

The 450
rolls of film had been assembled before the war for a bold venture: a study of
the evolution of the Quran, the text Muslims view as the verbatim transcript of
God's word. The wartime destruction made the project "outright
impossible," Mr. Spitaler wrote in the 1970s.

Mr.
Spitaler was lying. The cache of photos survived, and he was sitting on it all
along. The truth is only now dribbling out to scholars -- and a Quran research
project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave.

The article's
author, Andrew Higgins, writing from Munich, continues the survey of the
investigation. These paragraphs, below, shed light on the curiously unbalanced
state of affairs concerning the level of textual criticism allowed by Islam vs.
Christianity and Judaism:

During
the 19th century, Germans pioneered modern scholarship of ancient texts. Their
work revolutionized understanding of Christian and Jewish scripture. It also
infuriated some of the devout, who resented secular scrutiny of texts believed
to contain sacred truths.

The
revived Quran venture plays into a very modern debate: how to reconcile Islam
with the modern world? Academic quarrying of the Quran has produced bold
theories, bitter feuds and even claims of an Islamic Reformation in the making.
Applying Western critical methods to Islam's holiest text is a sensitive test
of the Muslim community's readiness to both accommodate and absorb thinking
outside its own traditions...

Quranic
scholarship often focuses on arcane questions of philology and textual
analysis. Experts nonetheless tend to tread warily, mindful of fury directed in
recent years at people deemed to have blasphemed Islam's founding document and
the Prophet Muhammad.

Would you say
that this a fair and balanced treatment of religions? Neither would I. In the
minds of most Westerners, "questioning" does not equal
"blaspheming." And Christians do not behead their enemies. An example
of such "questioning":

A
scholar in northern Germany writes under the pseudonym of Christoph Luxenberg
because, he says, his controversial views on the Quran risk provoking Muslims.
He claims that chunks of it were written not in Arabic but in another ancient
language, Syriac. The "virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic
martyrs, he asserts, are in fact only "grapes." (Whew! There is,
granted, the issue of the Quran using words in
languages other than Arabic.)

While the lead
scholar over the project, Angelika Neuwirth, discourages "radical"
theories, she still treads too lightly for my liking through the research
because of its being "taboo." Here is the main purpose of the
project, a welcome result:

...The
photos of the old manuscripts will form the foundation of a computer data base
that Ms. Neuwirth's team believes will help tease out the history of Islam's
founding text. The result, says Michael Marx, the project's research director,
could be the first "critical edition" of the Quran -- an attempt to
divine what the original text looked like and to explore overlaps with the
Bible and other Christian and Jewish literature.

Higgins
continues about the crucial differences in *allowable* textual criticism:

Many
Christians, too, dislike secular scholars boring into sacred texts, and dismiss
challenges to certain Biblical passages. But most accept that the Bible was
written by different people at different times, and that it took centuries of
winnowing before the Christian canon was fixed in its current form.

Muslims,
by contrast, view the Quran as the literal word of God (revealed over 23 years
vs. about 2000, through one man instead of many, etc.). Questioning the Quran
"is like telling a Christian that Jesus was gay," says Abdou
Filali-Ansary, a Moroccan scholar.

Modern
approaches to textual analysis developed in the West are viewed in much of the
Muslim world as irrelevant, at best. (Why, whatever for?) "Only the
writings of a practicing Muslim are worthy of our attention," a university
professor in Saudi Arabia wrote in a 2003 book. "Muslim views on the Holy
Book must remain firm: It is the Word of Allah, constant, immaculate,
unalterable and inimitable."

Can we say
"defensive"? Higgins goes on, driving home this point again:

[Gerd-Rüdiger]
Puin says the manuscripts suggested to him that the Quran "didn't just
fall from heaven" but "has a history." When he said so publicly
a decade ago, it stirred rage. "Please ensure that these scholars are not
given further access to the documents," read one letter to the Yemen
Times. "Allah, help us against our enemies."

Words that come
to my mind for this paragraph include "intentional blindness" and
"stifling free thought." Nothing new. On the whole, this article was
quite informative for me, even though I've been doing personal research about
comparison and contrast of Islam and Christianity. Check out this post as well (linked to
the WSJ article) for another take on it.

I mean, as a friend and out of good intentions, I'd be more than welcome to
explain any misconceptions that you might have... If you promised me to use all
your brain functionalities, like logic, and reasoning, for example.

...however, as a stranger, I can only say, praise all due to God, the Most
Wise, who clarified everything in His Miraculous Book:
"Is he, then, to whom the evil of his deeds made fairseeming, so that he
considers it as good (equal to one who is rightly guided)? Verily, God sends
astray whom He wills, and guides whom He wills. So destroy not yourself (O
Muhammad) in sorrow for (guiding) them. Truly, God is the All-Knower of what
they do." [35:8]

Thanks for the
answer. It confirms my understanding of Islam as a works-based religion. Since
I come from a Christian (i.e. grace-based religion) background, Islam will
always be a major sticking point for me. I invite you to investigate the Bible
with a curious mind, just as I am investigating the Quran.

"For the word of God [is] living and powerful, and sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart." (Hebrews 4:12, NKJV)